|
Mar 7 2001
| In the course of living, I found out that thinking itself needed review,
since I didn't know how I was thinking - I had only various systems in
place, but no understanding of how I was thinking what I was thinking. |
There are apparently three parts to thinking -
a) Observation
b) Speculation
c) Analysis
Most systems mainly have gone into analysis mainly and only touched on
the other two.
However, all three are present in thinking. You can start at any point
and go to any other point in any sequence. They each contribute to the
other two. An analysis is missing something, so you go to observe. Seeing
a scene in a plant gives a lot of data, which has to be analyzed before
anything constructive can be started with it. A dream of a school child
is obtainable if he looks around and sees what help he can get in working
to accomplish this, plus if he then sits down and analyzed what is needed
and works out a plan to actually now go out and achieve it. But if this
student gives up on his dream, then the whole shooting match goes up in
smoke.
You can start with any of these and people start different projects
differently. A new project might start with Speculation. An existing project
might start with Analysis or Observation. Observation, particularly of
a completely different discipline, brings in a different view of things
and so things can be thought through differently. Many breakthroughs come
to this.
Observation
would be a highly disciplined step. Analysis and Speculation will run right
on the heels of it, but must be kept separate. Scientific Method makes
this clear - as one of the methods that uses all three, but is heavy on
only two out of the three. And this has been, to a greater or lesser degree,
the stable method to use in most research.
Observation is simply observing what is there. Integrity must be kept
in on this point. The other two parts can be incremented in on this, coming
up with more scrutinizing observation based on a "thumbnail analysis" coming
from existing data and speculating a possible outcome. But you don't want
to speculate or imagine what you see or hear. And analysis at a desk doesn't
get one out of actually going out and looking. So when you observe, actually
observe what is there in front of you, not whether this proves your analysis
or is just what you imagined it would be.
But you can imagine, then observe then analyze - or you can analyze
some area, go observe some more data then speculate what you could do to
improve an area - or you could observe some production line or area, imagine
how it could be better and analyze what would have to be handled to achieve
that dream or improved reality.
Analysis
falls under various means. Sorting just the common methods of analysis
originally still left something missing - which filled in when finding
the other two equivalent steps. There are many systems and methods for
doing analysis.
Scientology's Data
Series is heavy on analysis and is successful in its own right,
due to the speed with which a person can quickly sort through
piles of data and come up with a correct handling.
Similarly, Scientific Method depends majorily on correctly executed
experiments, well written up so that anyone can duplicate the results.
It covers all three points, but light on speculation after one develops
his hypothesis.
I worked this area over myself from a common sense viewpoint and found some
general guides that can be used.
It goes that any analysis will result in a series of steps that must
be implemented. However, one just does these steps, not having to think
particularly about whether they are right or not. An analysis might come
up with other steps that have to be thought through before something else
can happen (Figure out if this is possible... or, Find out if these supplies
exist or where we can get them from...)
So none of these steps is in any way final, but each are a work-in-progress.
Execution of the resulting plan will mean
Speculation
is composed of imagination, fantasy, science fiction and any of the "what
ifs" which can be found. This is valuable beyond belief and is what has
driven most of the major expansions of our history, both ancient and modern.
A person has a view and then works to get them figured out and implemented.
In the Scientology Data Series, this is touched on as simply setting up
the scene that you want to achieve and then working backwards to find out
what is stopping this being achieved, then doing analyzing from that point.
But the important point is to realize that this step has a vital need
in society today and the dreamers amongst us, the writers, the artists
are the makers of a new future. Given the tools of analysis and observation
of what is existing, one can take almost any of these dreams and make it
a reality.
My discovery on this is to isolate the three points or areas of thinking.
From this we can workout how to improve any scene by including each part
in thinking out any situation or problem.
The use of these points is to do more of any of the other two to improve
the effectiveness of the one you have attention on.
Examples:
Doing an analysis of a manufacturing scene will show up with certain
facts in the office or in the flow of data available to you. Getting out
of the office and walking the assembly lines personally, talking to the
workers and supervisors will give you more data. Actually timing the lines
and looking the scene over from a time-motion study, will give still more
observed data for use in analysis. Now, going back to the desk, putting
all this aside and "just supposing we did this..." (speculation based on
observed and analyzed data) will come up with something that now can be
analyzed for fault or workability. If the proposed plan needs further observation
to see if it can be factually implemented, then there you go - off into
the factory to measure and layout and see if it will work. Paper and pencil
and eraser for flowcharts and workouts would be part of the speculation-observation-analysis
route.
Another example: an artist wants to try out a comic book - perhaps doing
it on the web. So he already has data of people who have the talent for
doing the parts he needs: an illustrator, a writer, a web designer and
himself, the producer. He has the idea for the web-comic (speculation).
Now he talks to these guys (observation) and gets more data. From this
he finds that there is substantial data on how to do this (analysis by
each of these specialists), but before he can work out a program for doing
this in all its steps, he has to himself surf the web to find similar sites
so that he can decide what he wants to do (observation resulting in more
speculation). Once he has the specifics, he can then sit down to do the
analysis which results in a plan or series of steps to take to achieve
the goal or product that he wants. Then he can send copies of this plan
to all concerned and get them to do their steps in it.
--------------
So this analysis of thinking covers a broad range of areas and looks
to contribute to existing methods as well.
I hope that your thinking might improve with this.
As always, let me know what
you think. There is certainly room for more development along this line.
Robert C. Worstell. |
